Lay committed fraud.
That's all.
He was not Hitler. He was not evil incarnate.
There are rapists and child molesters walking around free in this country - people need to get some sense of moral proportion.
You can't try and inject some rational thought here.
How dare you!!
He conducted his fraud to enrich himself at the cost of the financial futures of thousands of people. That's serious stuff and moral outrage is totally appropriate.
He committed one of the five sins that "cry out to heaven for vengeance."
(1) Wilful murder - the blood of Abel, [Gen. 4:10](2) The sin of the Sodomites, [Gen. 18:20; 19:13]
(3) The cry of the people oppressed in Egypt, [Ex. 3:7-10]
(4) The cry of the foreigner, the widow and the orphan, [Ex. 20:20-22] and
(5) Injustice to the wage earner. [Deut. 24:14-5; Jas. 5:4]
THAT'S ALL - A lot of people lost their life savings.....
MORAL PROPORTION - My ex-neighbor's brother-in-law (or father-in-law - I can't remember exactly) DID commit suicide after he found out he was wiped out of all his savings; he depended on his retirement to help pay for the care of his adult Downs Syndrome child.... Now that family has nothing. That's no different from the person who commits suicide after being molested or raped.
I think people are being proportionate. They are rapists and child molesters walking the streets but not one man who destroyed many, many lives.
A proportionate response is that RICO take all Ken Lay's assets.
But first a dignified funeral. Then seizure of everything.
"There are rapists and child molesters walking around free in this country - people need to get some sense of moral proportion."
A rapist or child molester destroys one or a handful of lives, which is terrible.
A guy who calmly defrauds his company, employees, and stockholders of billions destroys thousands.
As with a molestation or rape, the victim lives; but their lives are thrown into chaos, their futures ruined.
Now some outside guy, like me (although I had no stake in Enron) who bought some shares might have had a chance to bail out. The employees, though, were locked out of any chance to escape by transferring their 401k assets.
Those people were ****ed by Ken Lay. I don't want to in any way trivialize the horror of rape or molestation victims but IMO the "only fraud" treatment of white collar crime is 100% off target; the white-collar criminal just savages his victims from afar.
Yes he committed fraud, not murder or child molestation. He hurt many people. There were plenty of good hard working people at Enron, who lost everything they had becuase they couldn't sell when the prices started going down. Lay sacrificed the retirement and financial security of thousands of his employees and their families, so that he could buy another vacation home and continue his affluent life style.
I have no problem with someone making a lot of money. If they earn it good for them. Ken Lay didn't earn his fortune, he stole it from his employees.
That's all.
He was not Hitler. He was not evil incarnate.
So fraud is a "nice" crime?
Thanks for your reasoned response.
Ken Lay is a man who both built up a company and then saw it fall apart, due to actions that not just he but others took to hide the losses that Enron incurred in an 'internet bubble' trading business. It was wrong and illegal, but it didnt define all of who he was, and apparently he paid a high price for his errors - he lost his fortune, his honor, and now his life.
May Ken Lay rest in peace.